


Cold Toast

by WriterGirl128



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Amputee Shiro (Voltron), Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Angst with a Happy Ending, Astral Plane, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Klance if you squint, Lance (Voltron) Angst, Lance (Voltron) is a Mess, Langst, Phantom Limb Pain, Season/Series 07, Shiro (Voltron) is a Mess, Space Dad Shiro (Voltron), Temporary Character Death, The Lance/Shiro heart-to-heart we all needed but will never get, everyone's a mess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-21
Updated: 2018-08-21
Packaged: 2019-06-30 12:08:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,696
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15751368
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WriterGirl128/pseuds/WriterGirl128
Summary: Lance caught him trying—and failing—to open a jar of strawberry jam.  If it weren’t for the strange guilt coursing through his veins, making his entire body feel heavy at the sight, it might’ve even been comical.(Neither Shiro nor Lance understood the magic that had brought them back from the dead, but sometimes it’s easier to confront your demons at 3AM with the help of some toast, jam, and a little camaraderie)Takes place during S07, after the Paladins arrive on Earth





	Cold Toast

**Author's Note:**

> timeline: post-Earth-arrival, pre-floaty-arm.
> 
> slight tw // talk of death, clones, indicated body dysmorphia 
> 
> enjoy the pain, friends

Lance caught him trying—and failing—to open a jar of strawberry jam.

If it weren’t for the strange guilt coursing through his veins, making his entire body feel _heavy_ at the sight _,_ it might’ve even been comical.

Takashi Shirogane, pilot extraordinaire, fearless leader and highly-skilled intelligence officer. Sitting, smack dab in the middle of the kitchen floor at 3AM, barefoot with sleep-ruffled white hair. Knees bent and toes bloodless against the cheap linoleum floor, pressed down flat as if to anchor himself.  Jar clenched between his knees but shifting feebly in his efforts as his fingers worked to twist it open, unable to get a good grip on the glass through his sweatpants, fingers clumsy and weak, unused to more intricate actions. One sleeve of his t-shirt tight over his bicep as he worked his muscles futilely, the other hanging limply from his shoulder. Empty.

The Champion. Former Black Paladin, the man who once brought Zarkon himself to his knees. Struggling to open a jar.

Removing what remained of the Galra prosthetic had given Shiro a shadow of what could be considered _peace of mind._ As close to peace of mind that someone could get, Lance figured, after having their conscious soul essentially shoved into a dead, weaponized clone of themselves.

“ _She used the arm to control the clone,”_ he remembered Shiro saying, weak and desperate, as soon as the reality of this odd new existence came crashing down on him, not five doboshes after waking. “ _Please. We have to get rid of it.”_

They understood his concerns—hell, he wasn’t even the first who had spoken them aloud. And as soon as they’d touched down, as soon as they’d had access to a proper medical facility, he’d asked again. “ _Please. We have to get rid of it.”_

And so they had.

Lance hadn’t heard anything regarding a new arm on the horizon, but there was a war going on in their backyard and the Galaxy Garrison was the last line of defense, so he was ashamed to admit that he hadn’t exactly _thought_ about it. It wasn’t high on his priority list. Which was—admittedly, pretty fucked up, all things considered, but Shiro was _alive_ and now their attention had to be on keeping the rest of the universe alive, as well.

Now, however, there was a frustrated pull of Shiro’s eyebrows, focus drawn to the task at hand and oblivious to Lance’s company, and he couldn’t help but wince at his own disregard. How dare he? After everything Shiro has done for them, how dare he be so thoughtless?

He ignored that heavy _whatever_ he was feeling—not pity, he told himself, but something infuriatingly similar—and stepped forward, watching Shiro carefully. “Need some help?”

The man in question gave a startled yelp, jar clashing to the tiled floor and rolling a bit away before glancing up. For a handful of ticks, he just kind of blinked at the Red Paladin, fingers curling and uncurling around empty air, before the tension in his shoulders drained slightly, his frame relaxing into something less fight-or-flight and something more restful.

“Lance,” he exhaled, a huff of air followed by a barely-there laugh, and the corner of his lips twitched. “You scared me. What’re you doing up?”

Lance arched an accusing eyebrow. “I could ask you the same thing,” he deflected easily, before sobering slightly. “Couldn’t sleep?”

Shiro did smile then, a little, something small and tired as he shook his head. “Tried to, but—” He broke off, smile wavering, as if unsure how to put something to words. “—I’m not really… _tired,”_ he finished. “And I know I should be, but…”

 _But this body isn’t mine. This body is synthetic. This body was grown in a lab. This body was designed to be a weapon. This body was never meant to rest_.

There were so many sickening ways Shiro could finish that sentence.

“…I don’t know,” Shiro sighed. “The mind is more willing than the body, I guess.”

Something lurched in Lance’s chest, and he nodded to the evasive jar, trying not to linger on heartbreaking things. “So eating away your sorrows, instead?”

Shiro followed his gaze and let out another low chuckle, reaching to take up the offending object once more in his hand. “Trying, at least,” he affirmed, good natured, and pointed the jar towards the counter. “My toast’s probably gone cold by now, though.”

Lance followed Shiro’s gesture to the abandoned plate on the counter, two pieces of perfectly browned toast waiting at the ready, and again, something twinged in his chest. _Not pity not pity not pity._ He felt his expression turn wry. “I’d ask if you needed a hand,” he said dryly, and despite his best efforts there was something sad about it, “but that seems kinda cruel, given the circumstances.”

But the former Paladin only cracked a grin and let out another small laugh, and it was never more apparent to him that this was _Shiro._ This wasn’t the quick-to-snap, too-intense version of him, and it wasn’t the detached, flighty version that had come back to them, _resurrected_ , struggling to connect the idea of himself with a physical form after spending months in isolation on the astral plane. This was their Shiro, kind, good-natured, deserved-better-than-what-this-life-has-handed-him _Shiro,_ right down to that unexpectedly dark sense of humour and those easy-to-laugh charcoal eyes.

“Ah,” he was chuckling, and Lance forced himself to _be_ _there_ , in the present, ignoring the sudden prickle behind his eyes because they’d had a wrong version of Shiro for so long and he hadn’t realized just how much he’d _missed_ _this— “_ a hand would be great, actually. If you don’t mind.”

Again, Lance pressed back that insistent, sluggish ache that seemed to be branching out from somewhere deep in his chest, flashing Shiro a grin and taking the jar into his own right hand. He took Shiro’s—now empty—hand with the other, wrapping his fingers around Shiro’s wrist, thick and solid and strong while steady fingers returned the gesture. Shiro’s fingers were large, looping easily and completely around Lance’s smaller wrist, and they were warm, and they were alive, and they were human.

Mostly human. The fingers of a biological clone of a human, at least, which is basically the same thing. He mentally scolded himself. _Don’t think about it. Stop thinking about it_. He’s human. He’s human enough, at least _. Stop thinking about it._

Lance heaved him to his feet with a grunt of effort, because clone body or not, Shiro’s built like some kind of incredibly sculpted masterpiece, tall and long-limbed and chiseled from marble, and the bulk of his weight easily outmatched Lance’s any day of the week.

Any quintant of the movement. Whatever. Space units of time were weird.

(The fact that they weren’t _in_ _space_ anymore was weird, too. The fact that they could use human units of time again was weird. When had that happened? When had the alien version of everything become his default, become his _normal_?)

Lance held on until Shiro was steady on his feet, once again taller than the Red Paladin, and part of Lance felt like everything was back to the way it should be. The way it ought to be. Shiro should never crane his neck to catch Lance’s eyes, like he had only moments ago—he should never have to look up to someone else, seeming so small, sitting alone on the floor. This was better. This was better.

Releasing Shiro’s wrist, he nodded to one of the stools by the counter, shifting the jam to his now-free hand and wrapping his fingers around the curve of the lid. He gripped the glass with steady fingers and gave the lid a slight tug.

It twisted off easily, with a _pop._

Shiro sighed a little beside him, a sound far too heavy for how quietly it faded into the hushed air around them, and Lance wasn’t sure, really, if it was something he was supposed to hear.

(He didn’t think so.)

(Shiro never let the team hear those kinds of sighs.)

When he looked over, however, Shiro was simply sinking down to the aforementioned stool, lips twisting once again into a smile, not a lick of malice in his eyes. “Show off,” he teased, and when Lance offered the newly opened jar, he accepted it with a nod. “Thanks.”

Lance just forced his lips into a smile and pulled the neighboring stool free, as well. “Anytime, buddy.”

He sank down to his own seat and the room fell silent again, soon interrupted only by the scraping sound of a butter knife’s edge against the toasted bread. Lance couldn’t bring himself to speak, but that heavy feeling was back, settling into his chest and deep into his lungs. He couldn’t put a name to it if he tried, but it was familiar. Cold, almost, and familiar.  

When Shiro finished spreading the jam over the toast, he offered a slice to Lance. He glanced down, arching an eyebrow at the pitiful, hair-thin layer of pink, before snatching the knife from Shiro’s hand and scooping out a generous glob of jelly, evening it out across the bread.

Shiro looked almost scandalized at the prospect of eating such a monstrosity, but Lance simply rolled his eyes and took a bite, relishing in the flavorful, fruity taste.

After a moment, Shiro rolled his eyes too, and took a bite of his (much blander) snack as well. His expression twisted. “Ugh. Cold toast.”

Lance snorted, because _yes,_ it was cold, but it was also something Shiro had shared with him, so he didn’t feel the need to complain.

Another beat of silence passed over them, perforated only by the crunch of the bread.

“So—are you ready to talk about it?”

Lance blinked, shifting in his seat slightly to glance at Shiro, who seemed to grow more serious. Concerned, even. “Talk about what?” he asked, chest aching.

But Shiro only gave him a knowing look, tipping his head slightly in that way he always had, every bit the patient leader that he always was. (Nothing like that demanding, shadow-world version of him had been. Seriously, how did none of them _realize_ —)

“The radiation beam?” Shiro prompted gently, eyebrows drawing in but raised slightly in the middle, concern etched into every little crease of his frown.

Lance could’ve choked. As it is, he was pretty sure his heart halted in his chest, that heavy coldness tightening around his lungs and squeezing them lifeless. Suddenly, his toast was too sweet. Sicky sweet and completely nauseating. He set it back down to the plate with a lurching stomach. “I—I don’t,” he stammered out, but his voice died, breath catching in his throat. He felt sick.

Shiro only smiled again at him, and there was a tired sorrow behind it. “Lance, it’s okay. I know.”

But he’d never told Shiro (not Shiro?) what happened. He’d never _told_ him, he’d never told _anyone—_ and Allura had promised—he’d never _told_ —

—how did Shiro—

The wash of cold felt like ice under his skin. Piercing, biting, familiar cold. A flash of death.

He swallowed numbly. “You do?”

The former Paladin’s eyes were kind as he watched him, careful and worried. “I do.”

Lance blinked, that horrible prickle behind his eyes once again, and he pushed it back. “ _How_?” he asked, and it came out like an odd croak. The countertop was hard and cold under his fingers. _He never told—_

Shiro took in a breath, and it was long and quiet and labored as he shifted his gaze. When he exhaled, he set his own half-eaten toast to the plate, neighboring Lance’s.

“When I was—” he began, but almost as soon as the words had come to him, they faltered. White, snowy eyebrows drew together again, and Shiro frowned down at his fingers. “When I was in the astral plane,” he tried again, and his voice was steady, if a bit quieter, “it wasn’t just the Black Lion’s consciousness that I was tied to. It was Voltron’s—quintessence. Kind of.”

Again, Lance swallowed, trying to dislodge the lump swelling in his throat. He wasn’t really sure what that meant, exactly, but it made that heavy feeling in his chest even heavier. “So you saw...?” he pressed vaguely, unsure of what exactly it was that Shiro was saying.

(He wasn’t exactly sure what had even _happened_ in the first place, if he was being honest with himself. Shiro’s—consciousness? quintessence?—had been trapped. That much he understood. Trapped in some kind of cosmic limbo within the Black Lion, physical body gone without a trace—and he still didn’t understand how _that_ happened, either, but his own bones and muscles ached at the prospect of being stripped free of their _soul_ —

—and that’s where he’d stayed, phoeb after phoeb, locked away within the literal heart of Voltron, and it struck Lance how naive he had been to assume that Shiro hadn’t still been there, with them, for all that time. That he hadn’t been present every time the clone flew Black, every time they formed Voltron together, every time they fought tooth and nail for the liberation of the universe.

Of course Shiro had been there.

Of course Shiro had been with them through everything.

Did he see the way the clone had comforted him? Did he see the way the clone had played Monsters and Mana with them? Did he see the way they treated this imposter like a friend, like _family?_ )

At his side, Shiro hummed lowly, before shaking his head. “No,” he denied, as Lance blinked himself back into the real world, “no, I didn’t see. Not really. More like a… feeling. Some kind of celestial shift in Voltron’s quintessence, I guess.”

And that was... vague, and confusing, and Lance didn’t really know what to make of it so he just let the silence press on, his mouth too dry to speak anyways.

“Ah,” Shiro continued after a while, a sigh as he lifted his hand, ran fingers uncertainly through his forelock, “I don’t know. Everything’s still a little—” He gestured generically, tiredly. “—you know? Kind of scrambled.”

Which, yeah, was probably the understatement of the goddamn _century_ , but Lance wasn’t about to start picking at those loose threads—not when there were years of barely-concealed trauma that could so easily become unraveled.

“But I know what dying feels like,” Shiro was saying then, and—

—alright, maybe _Shiro_ was ready to start picking at some threads, but this wasn’t a topic Lance was even _remotely_ prepared to breach, and if he wasn’t sure his heart had been beating before he certainly was now, the pulse of his blood loud in his ears.

He swallowed again, averting his gaze and forcing his fingers to unclench from the fists they’d apparently tightened into. Waiting for Shiro to go on, to continue, to offer some of that sage advice Keith always raved about with admiration in his voice and deep gratefulness in his eyes.

But Shiro didn’t go on. He didn’t elaborate, or tell him something profound and comforting, and the silence that hung around them was thick. Deafening. And Lance’s mouth still felt dry, but he never jived well with the _quiet_ , so he drew his brows together and scowled at his fingers before speaking.

“I get really cold,” he found himself admitting, his own voice lower and more serious than he’s heard it in years. “Like—this heavy, cold feeling in my chest, and sometimes I can’t _breathe_.”

Which was kind of comical, really, because the beam—that flash of light, of radiation—had been hot and bright and had burned his body from the inside out.

_Don’t think about it. Stop thinking about it._

Shiro was watching him again, worry pinched in his brow. “Why haven’t you said anything?”

He let out a shaky exhale through his nose, offering a halfhearted shrug. “Oh, y’know—intergalactic war, and all. Things to do, people to save, empires to stop.”

Shiro’s expression twisted slightly, and for a moment his hair was dark again, buzzed at the sides, eyes framed with dark brows and a metal arm attached below his right shoulder.  “Lance,” he chastised, every bit the space dad he was, and again, Lance was hit by a wave of gratefulness that Shiro was back, that their Shiro had come back to them, after being away for so long. “I’m serious.”

Despite everything, Lance felt his lips twitch into an almost-smile. _Hi serious, I’m Lance_ , he almost said back, an instinct, because it was so much easier to joke and divert the subject than to come face-to-face with that hollowness he nursed somewhere near his heart. Like not all of him had been brought back. “I don’t know,” he said instead, looking down, and he didn’t. “Just—never seemed important, I guess. It wasn’t a priority, with everything else going on.”

“You’re a priority,” Shiro returned immediately, without a lick of hesitation, and when Lance glanced up, he was met with steady, set eyes. “If you’re hurting, we want to help you. We’re a _team_.”

“Our team was _broken_.”

The words came out sudden and sharp, and a flicker of pain crossed Shiro’s face, a wince, and Lance kicked himself mentally. The last thing Shiro deserved was to be snapped at for trying to help. Shiro hadn’t done anything _wrong._ He drew in a breath, tight in his lungs. “We weren’t... _right_ , Shiro,” he went on, less abrasive, and shook his head. “We didn’t feel like a _team_ , anymore. Allura was off cozying up to Lotor, Pidge and Hunk we’re in their own little engineering world, Keith was off playing space ninja with the Blades, and you were—”

He broke off, stopping his words. _Cruel_ and _demanding_ and _harsh_ came to mind, but no. He wasn’t _anything_ , Lance thought bitterly, because Shiro was gone and they hadn’t even realized.

“—not you,” he finished lamely, guilt turning over in his stomach. “You weren’t you, and Keith was gone, and I died.”

His eyes were burning, now, that stubborn prickle morphing into something terrifyingly more real.

“I died,” he repeated, shaky, “and Allura brought me back, somehow, and I don’t understand it, and all I remember is feeling _cold_.”

Lance’s voice broke, hoarse and uneven, and there was this quivering _something_ in the base of his throat that he tried desperately to stifle. He wouldn’t cry, not here, not now, with a chill under his skin and the man he once considered his idol looking on with concern.

The man he _still_ considered his idol, if he was being honest with himself.

He swallowed it back and averted his gaze, not trusting his voice to stay steady, and found himself staring intently at their abandoned snack. The thick jam was starting to slide off the bitten edge of the bread, and Lance couldn’t help but think what a waste it was. Ridiculous, sure. But the thought made the burn in his eyes hotter.

“Do you know what phantom limb pain is?”

The question was—sudden, in the tense silence, and it startled Lance into looking up again. He blinked at Shiro, hearing the words, but frowning slowly nonetheless. “What?”

Shiro shifted on his seat, and pressed his hand into the smooth countertop, fingers splayed open. “Phantom limb pain,” he repeated, still steady, glancing down at his hand. “Have you ever heard of it?”

Lance’s eyes flicked from Shiro’s face down to that damn, empty sleeve, and back up. As soon as he’d done it, guilt clenched tightly in his stomach. “Yeah,” he affirmed with a small nod. His eyebrows drew together further, a new kind of concern pulling at him. “It’s like—it’s got something to do with damaged nerve endings, right? Like, the trauma from cutting the nerves leaves them inflamed, and your brain thinks that it’s... that there’s still something there.”

Shiro frowned a little, fingers curling into the counter before relaxing again. “It was... a lot easier,” he began, and the words seemed like they were hard for him to say, “with the prosthetic. As much as I hated it, I could see the arm, and move the arm, and _use_ it, and it was... almost easy to forget, sometimes, that it wasn’t _mine_. Not really. Because I could feel it, sometimes, and I’d look down, and it would _be there._ ”

Lance’s chest lurched again. As far as pep talks go, this definitely wasn’t one of Shiro’s best, something sad and mournful and a little bit angry twisting up inside of him, curling and coiling and tensing.

 Shiro frowned deeper, still down at the counter, but silently brought his hand to his right shoulder. Prodded gently at what Lance knew must be bandages, hiding beneath the fabric of his shirt.

They’d had to take part of his clavicle out, Keith told him. During the surgery. In order to get the oddly deformed, almost _alive_ prosthetic off, they’d had to remove part of Shiro’s clavicle, had to saw through his scapula.

(Part of Lance was _relieved,_ in a twisted kind of way. Relieved that he was still constructed the same way, relieved that Haggar had at least done her homework on human anatomy before growing her life-sized Shiro puppets.

Another part of Lance just felt sick.)

“Now when I feel it,” the former Paladin went on, softer, “I look down and there’s nothing there.”

 _But it still feels like there is._ The words went unsaid, but Lance heard them loud and clear. Heard their significance.

Lance swallowed, glancing down at his own hands. “Does it ever—” he began, but his voice faltered weakly as he mimicked what Shiro had done, splaying his own fingers open on the counter, pressed flat. Identical twins, like the reflection from a mirror. “Does it ever feel like you’re still there?” he tried again, and his voice was solemn, but steady. “In the astral plane, I mean. Voltron’s quintessence?”

Beside him, Shiro shifted in his seat but stayed silent. There were a few ticks of it—maybe a dobosh, really—and Lance almost regretted asking. But eventually Shiro sighed, this dense, grey kind of sound, and ducked his head into a slow nod. “Sometimes,” he confided. “Sometimes when I’m alone, or when it’s dark. Sometimes I just feel really—”

He broke off, words dying, breath hitching.

“—cold?” Lance finished for him, because for what may have been the first time _ever,_ it seemed like Shiro had lost his voice. Like every word he knew had run away from him.

Deep, space grey eyes flicked to Lance, and Shiro’s breath came out slowly again (all the answer he really needed, anyways), and all Lance could think about was how ironic it all was. That they’d both felt that cold, that they’d both felt that grip of death, and that Allura had pulled them both back to the surface. Magic, or alchemy, or whatever it was—she’d pulled them out, and here they were, staring at cold toast at 3AM and talking about their own resurrections.

Again, it was almost comical.

“When Allura—did whatever she did,” Lance glossed over, and part of that tightness in his lungs uncoiled, just a margin, “sometimes it feels like she didn’t… like she didn’t _get_ it all. Like she didn’t bring all of me back. Like I’m—”

—as he said the words, the _phantom limb pain_ thing suddenly made a lot more sense—

“— _missing_ something.” He blinked, and he wondered if _this_ was the feeling Keith got every time Shiro shared some life-lesson or another with his brother. This feeling of... understanding, yes, but something deeper than that. This feeling of solidarity, almost—like someone was there, someone _got_ it, someone was in the same boat that he was.

Because he was missing something, something he’d lost that day he’d died, and Shiro was too. Shiro was missing something, too, besides his arm, and he’d only been dead for a few doboshes, and Shiro had been dead for _months_ , and he couldn’t imagine how much harsher that cold must’ve been for the former Black Paladin. 

Again, Lance’s mouth had gone dry, but gratefulness swelled in his chest and for the moment, he felt a little less hollowed. A little bit warmer.

 _Oh_ , he thought, and his vision blurred. _Okay._

There was a hand settling on his shoulder, and when he blinked, Shiro was steady at his side. “It’s okay for that missing part to hurt, Lance,” he said softly, and shook his head. “What’s not okay is thinking you have to face that hurt _alone_.”

A sharp exhale left him, wet and jagged, and Lance quickly brought the heels of his hands up to his eyes, wiping away the moisture there. He shook his head as he did so. “I don’t know how to tell them,” he admitted thickly, and dropped his hands again. “How am I supposed to _tell_ _them_ something like this? How can I—”

— _hurt them, like that_?

His voice broke, the question clenched silent in his throat. Extinguished.

And Shiro simply sighed, pulling him in close, and despite only having one arm it was the most secure Lance has felt in a while. He exhaled into the embrace, and felt more than saw Shiro shaking his head. “I know things weren’t right, for a while,”  he was saying gently. “But you’ve always come through for the team. Let them have your back, this time.”

Lance swallowed thickly, but that grateful warmth in his chest only swelled. “It’s not that easy,” he admitted.

Again, Shiro let out a quiet laugh. “It never is,” he acknowledged. “But it helps. Trust me.”

And Lance did. He did trust him. 

Pulling away, Lance swiped at his eyes again to dry them. “When did you get so wise?” he mumbled, suddenly tired. Exhausted, really—like he could fall asleep peacefully at any given moment. Content and warm and alive.

Shiro merely cracked another grin at him, seeming to sense Lance’s ease. “A few phoebs trapped in an ancient, mystical lion’s life force can do that to you, I think.”

Lance felt his own lips tug into a smile, his own laugh bubble shakily to the surface. And while that might’ve been true, Shiro’s always exuded encouragement and support and snippets of wisdom, and that wasn’t the astral plane’s doing. That was just Shiro.

Man, was it good to have him back.

A beat of silence passed between them, but it wasn’t heavy, like before. After a moment, Shiro reached for his toast again, picking it up gingerly between strong fingers. “It’s good to be home,” he said simply, and Lance snorted at the redundantness of it all. 

“It’s good to have you home,” he assured anyways, glancing down at his own toast.

“It’s good to be _alive_.”

And Lance agreed with that too, because it was, because life was fragile and precious and the idea of finding solidarity in his team seemed to chase some of that cold hollowness of death away, seemed to uncoil those knots of nausea in his stomach. And Shiro understood, something he wasn’t sure he’d ever be able to put into words, and he was grateful for that. 

He picked up his own toast, using it to scoop up the jam that had dribbled off the edge. “We should get t-shirts,” he mused aloud. “Or start a club. Team Ressurection.”

”Write a self-help book,” Shiro suggested, playing along. “ _What To Do When an Alien Princess Brings You Back From the Dead_.”

Lance laughed, feeling lighter than he had in phoebs. Beside him, Shiro bit into his toast again, chuckling a bit as well, and Lance was put at ease with how right things finally were, after being so wrong for so long. 

That unbridled cold wouldn’t be gone forever, he knew. But his team was warm and Shiro was home and he wasn’t _alone_ , so he simply lifted his toast once more and bit into it with a crunch. 

It was sweet, again, and he relished in the flavor, in the feeling of being alive. 


End file.
